Chapter 1 Kate #2
“No,” Eric said gently, his hands resting on my shoulders.
“He doesn’t. And what he did for our daughter wins him my unwavering respect.
Respect,” he repeats. “But not you. I will fight for you, Kate,” he added, his voice low.
His fingertips brushed a stray lock of hair away from my eyes, and I shivered under the touch.
“It was different before,” I said, thinking about that one time I’d given in to desire, and how right it had felt to be in bed with him again. “We didn’t think he would ever come out of the coma.”
“But we both wanted it.” He met my eyes. “We both still do.”
“Yes,” I admitted because he already knew the answer. “But he needs me.”
“Does he? I don’t know. But I know I do.”
“Stuart didn’t sign up for any of this. He didn’t grow up in Forza. He wasn’t trained. He was just a normal guy who married a woman with a really complicated secret past, and now he’s having prophetic episodes that leave him drained and confused and—”
“And distant,” Eric finished. “And cold. And completely unavailable to his wife.”
“But I’m still his wife.”
“You haven’t been his wife for a long time. Not really. At what point do we stop calling it an adjustment and start calling it what it really is?”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“Over.”
“Till death do us part,” I said. “You died, Eric. Stuart didn’t.”
I expected another argument, but all he did was nod, then brush the grass from his jeans like we’d just finished a pleasant picnic instead of a training session that had been topped by verbal sparring.
“You’re the one who screwed up, remember? You kept secrets from me, and they bit you in the ass. You lost, you died, and Stuart won. More than that, he put up with me even after he learned all my secrets. I’m not going to abandon him.”
“Maybe.” He took a step toward me. I took one back. “But you still want me.”
“I’ve never said otherwise.”
“And you showed it to me, too.” Another step. Another retreat. “And not just in bed before Stuart woke up. You show me every time you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
“Stop.”
“He’s not back, Kate. Stuart’s awake and walking around, but he’s not back. But I am.”
A shiver cut through me, because yes, Eric was back. His death may have ended our marriage, but he was still here. Maybe he was in a new body, but it was the same soul. Same memories. Same way of looking at me that made my knees go weak even after all these years.
And yeah, that was all a little confusing.
“He’ll get better,” I whispered, not entirely sure if I was trying to convince Eric or myself. “The visions will stabilize. I’ve talked with Father Corletti.
“Father Corletti said he’s never seen anything like it.” Eric’s hand came up to cup my face. “If he said anything, it was priest-speak for ‘I have no earthly idea what’s happening to your husband, and I don’t want to tell you that he might be losing his mind.’”
I shook my head. “No. Stuart’s going to get through this.”
“Katie.” His thumb traced my lower lip, and I shivered despite myself.
“Stuart may get better. I hope he does, for Timmy’s sake if nothing else.
But even if the visions stabilize, even if he figures out how to live with whatever’s happening in his head.
..” He paused, letting the words hang between us.
“He may never be the man you married. Not anymore.”
I pulled away, needing distance, needing air. I ended up leaning back against the tomb, hugging myself to ward off the chill from the nearby ocean.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, his voice gentler now. “Whatever happens. It’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. I don’t.” He reached out, taking my hand in his. “But I know that I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.” He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “I’m still me, Kate. I’m still the man you married. Different body, same soul. Same love.”
“You’re not,” I said.”
He didn’t argue. He just leaned in and kissed me.
And because I’m apparently incapable of making good decisions where Eric Crowe is concerned, I kissed him back. Just for a moment. Just long enough to remember exactly why I’d fallen in love with him all those years ago in the Forza training rooms deep beneath the Vatican.
Then I shoved him away and slid back into a sparring stance, because that was safer. That was something I knew how to do. “We’re supposed to be training.”
“Then show me what you’ve got.” He mirrored my stance, circling left as I circled right, the tomb between us.
I feinted left and struck right, but he was ready for it, blocking my punch and using my momentum to spin me around. I countered with an elbow to his ribs, and we separated, both breathing hard.
“You’re pulling your punches,” he said.
“I’m not trying to actually hurt you.”
“Why not?” He grinned, that infuriating, irresistible grin I knew too well. “Afraid you don’t have the stomach for it?”
I lunged at him, and the game was definitely on. We weaved around the tombs and tombstones, trading blows and blocks, neither of us quite willing to commit to a finishing move. It was less like combat and more like dancing—which, knowing Eric, was probably exactly his point.
He caught my wrist on a particularly sloppy punch and used it to pull me close again. “Admit it,” he murmured against my hair. “You want more than training sessions.”
“Sure,” I said, my breath shallow. “I want world peace and no demons.”
He laughed, then turned that into a feint and lunged. I spun, but tripped over a branch, stumbled a few feet, then tripped over something solid and wide. I went down hard, the odor of burnt flesh filling my nostrils.
“Eric,” I said, and he went perfectly still. The man knows my voice well.
“What is it?”
I fumbled in my back pocket for the penlight I keep there, but Eric had gotten to his first, and now he aimed it at the ground. More specifically, at the dead man on the perfectly trimmed grass.
A man I recognized.
A man who shouldn’t be here.
Antonio Russo. A man who’d been coming here from Rome to join the staff at Forza West as Marcus Giatti’s assistant trainer.
“What the hell happened?” I whispered as Eric took my hand to help me up.
At first glance, there was nothing. No wounds, no blood, no obvious cause of death. Just that odor. Antonio could have been sleeping, except for the unnatural stillness and the way his eyes stared at nothing.
Then Eric swept the penlight lower, and we both saw it.
There, on Antonio’s palm, burned into the skin like a brand—a symbol. Angular lines intersected with curves, forming a pattern that seemed to be entirely random.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
Eric made a sound low in his throat.
I whipped my head up to look at him. “You recognize it?”
“It’s a Signum Fidelis,” he said, his voice tight.
I shivered. That really wasn’t good. A Signum Fidelis is a demon’s unique signature, and demons usually don’t sign their work. On the contrary, the mark ends up on a victim only when the demon wants to leave a very, very clear message.
In other words, this was what we Demon Hunters call a Really Bad Thing. “Do you know which demon?”
“Not off the top of my head,” Eric said. “But I’ll text the image to Father Corletti and hit the books myself, too.”
“Why kill Antonio?”
Eric met my eyes. “I don’t know.”
I trembled, my mom instincts now on overdrive. “Let’s go,” I said, already moving. “I want to check on Allie.”